Season 1 (Doctor Who 1963)

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This article is for the 1963-64 season of Doctor Who; for other initial seasons of other programmes, see Series 1.

Season 1 of Doctor Who ran between 23 November 1963 and 12 September 1964. It starred William Hartnell as the First Doctor and Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter.

Overview

It consisted of eight serials (listed below) and 42 episodes, and a pilot episode which never aired on television. (More accurately, the production team made several versions of the pilot episode.) The inaugural season established many of the concepts that continue to the present day, and also introduced the hugely popular Daleks. Two of the three historical stories of this season are presently considered lost, although audio recordings of all episodes remain.

Television stories

# Title Writer Episodes Notes
1 An Unearthly Child Anthony Coburn 4 First appearances of the First Doctor, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and the TARDIS
2 The Daleks Terry Nation 7 First appearance of the Daleks
3 The Edge of Destruction David Whitaker 2 Only set in the TARDIS
4 Marco Polo John Lucarotti 7 First storyline based around an historical figure
5 The Keys of Marinus Terry Nation 6
6 The Aztecs John Lucarotti 4 Introduces the concept of changing history
7 The Sensorites Peter R. Newman 6
8 The Reign of Terror Dennis Spooner 6 First story to feature location filming

Notes

  • Unseen by the public, an early version of the first episode of An Unearthly Child was produced, but was not broadcast until 1991.
  • Stories consisted of between 2 and 7 episodes, with each episode having a distinct title. Some stories have been given different titles over the years; see individual articles for details.

Cast

Main cast

Season 1 was the last season before Season 6 to retain the same core cast members for an entire series.

Guest cast

Production

Creation

The series was essentially the creation of a committee, with the following amongst the many who created the various parts that went into the series: Donald Wilson (time travel), Sydney Newman (the First Doctor and Susan), C. E. Webber (Ian and Barbara, scenario for the first episode), Anthony Coburn (Susan's name, the TARDIS looking like a police box), David Whitaker (Susan as the Doctor's granddaughter).

Production overview

Verity Lambert was chosen by Sydney Newman as Producer of the series and Mervyn Pinfield was assigned as Associate Producer, picking up on the mainly technical side of the series such as dealing with the in-camera SFX.

Initially, the series was only ordered for the first four episodes that made up 100 000 BC and came close to going no further. This was extended to thirteen episodes, but the production team had either eleven (100,000 BC and The Mutants) or eighteen (100,000 BC, The Mutants, Marco Polo). To solve this problem, David Whitaker wrote the two episode Inside the Spaceship, something that normally wouldn't have happened due to an existing rule that prohibited Script Editors writing for the series they were editing. (Otherwise they could simply have "hired" themselves and deprived other script writers of work.)

The first through to third season story titles have been a contentious issue. For more information, see Disputed story titles.

Stories considered during this season, but ultimately unmade included:

Stories set during this season

Adaptations and merchandising

Home media

VHS

  • An Unearthly Child (1990/2000)
  • The Daleks (in 2 parts) (1989)
  • The Daleks (Remastered) (2001)
  • The Edge of Destruction and The Pilot Episode (2000)
  • The Keys of Marinus (1999)
  • The Aztecs (1992)
  • The Sensorites (2002)
  • The Reign of Terror (2003) (With linking narration of Missing episodes, also includes The Faceless Ones, 1,3 & The Web of Fear Ep 1)
  • The Hartnell Years (1991) (Pilot Episode)

See episode articles for full detials

Loose Cannon VHSes

  • Marco Polo (2002)
  • The Reign of Terror (2000) (Episodes 4+5 Only)

DVDs

  • An Unearthly Child (2006)
  • The Daleks (2006)
  • The Edge of Destruction (2006) (With 30 minute reconstruction of Marco Polo)
  • The Keys of Marinus (2009)
  • The Aztecs (2002)
  • The Sensorites (2012)
  • The Reign of Terror (2012)

Unannounced DVDs

Novels

Audiobooks

Theatrical Film

External links